The summer 2013 floods which hit areas in parts of Germany and adjacent countries devastated large areas and caused a huge amount of economic losses.
Against the backdrop of this “centennial flood” this conference deals with the question how volunteers and non-professionals may contribute to the management of flood-disasters with gathering and communicating on-the-ground information via social media and web-based tools.
Especially, the use of geodata are of importance to achieve a better situational awareness and provide contextual information during disasters. The use of “Crisis Mapping” is one opportunity for volunteers to contribute with geodata.

Invited talks from researchers and practitioners will present the state of the art in the use of volunteered information for crisis management. Furthermore, the needs and potentials will be discussed with the emphasis on:
a) Provision of information and analysis in the Web 2.0: “Disaster Mapping” and Crowd-based information gathering for Crisis Incidents

How can volunteered geographic information (VGI), such as Openstreetmaps (OSM), or social media, such as facebook and twitter, be effectively used in crisis management?
How can crisis-relevant information be gathered with crowdsourcing approaches?
How can the crowd-based information get extracted, aggregated and displayed in a purposeful way and how can the quality be assured?

How can web applications be used for the compilation and dissemination of situation reports during crises?
What are the challenges and opportunities in web-based staff work- and management?
How can ad-hoc volunteers be better coordinated through Web 2.0 technologies?
How can the self-organization of citizens be supported with the goal of including volunteers in the work of crisis management agencies?